Stolen Blog Posts – What Should You Do?

Well, this is interesting. A couple of weeks ago I was checking on Google to see how my business blog was faring for certain keywords. I was shocked to find that my name and what I did was fairly prominent… but on other websites.

they stole my content!

I often kid (kind of) about Google hating me and my blogs, but it never occurred to me that they actually love my stuff on other people’s blogs… that they’re not writing. Frankly, this could explain a lot of what’s going on with my traffic, especially if it’s being siphoned off to other places. What am I talking about? Let me share some examples.
I’ll use this blog as an example because it’s easier to do. In November I wrote a post titled The State Of Blogging – A Stream Of Unconsciousness which, for once, Google actually acknowledges from this blog in the first spot. However, after that we have these:

A blog called MedScribes has stolen my article and posted it here:

http://www.5emergencyroomhospital.tk/news/The-State-Of-Blogging-%E2%80%93-A-Stream-Of-Unconsciousness/ (no, I’m not giving them any links).

Not only have they stolen the article, but they’re showing all my images, showing the links I put into the article as theirs, and are even showing my copyright notice (the idiots!). BTW, I think this site also belongs to them as it’s showing the exact same thing:

These folks only took a portion of it but have linked it back to Bing instead of me… for some stupid reason. Well, except at the bottom, where they’ve stolen my title but are linking to something called autotraffic.fullcontentrss.com.

There were 2 other sites that supposedly had my content on them but Google at least alerted me that both sites were suspicious; I don’t intentionally look for trouble. 🙂

These are different days than they were 7 years ago. Back then, it took other websites and blogs a good amount of effort to steal the content of others. These days, all it takes is installing an RSS feed program, setting up some keywords and it all transfers automatically. The blog owners don’t even know what they’re stealing; they never look at any of the content. You can bet they’ve set up their sites to try to either sell something or drop some malware on you.

This is also the time when other people share your content; we all like that. I’ve seen my content (that other people share) on Pinterest sites, LinkedIn, Flipboard, Kingged, Triberr and StumbleUpon. At least on those sites you get a link back to your site; some of them even publish only a small piece of your content and link to it so people who are interested will visit you.

A friend of mine asked me why I cared so much about whether or not someone else was using my articles. I said it’s because of two reasons. One, because I wrote it! Two, because the search engines will see it as duplicate content and possibly penalize me for it. It’s hard enough getting visitors to our websites without other people stealing from us.

There are two things we can do about it; actually, 3 things.

The first is to send an email to the offenders and ask them to remove your content from their site. This has worked sparingly in the past because many times they don’t open the email.

The second is to file a DCMA notice. What this does is alert their host that they’re illegally stealing content and they have to shut it down… maybe. I add that part because some countries aren’t obligated to acquiesce to the notice… the weasels! Since two of the links above end in tk, which stands for Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand, I might not get any satisfaction. But I’m going to try my best to get these things removed, especially since I have a copyright notice.

The third… well, sometimes you might not be upset that your content is on another site. In that case, maybe all you want is a link back to your site, which is easy to request. Right now, that’s not gonna get it done for me; I need to shut some people down! lol

How can you check for these things? Copy some of your blog titles, go to a search engine (Google’s good with this), and paste your title between quotation marks. If everything’s working right, your own post should show up first. If there are lots of titles like yours, then your title is probably too generic; that’s a red flag that hurts your SEO. If it’s not, then you have to look through the subsequent links to see where your content might be. Remember, some of the links might be from comments you left somewhere.

One last thing. A guy named Steve Williams read this post and shared a link to easily create a DMCA document; thanks Steve!

This post has 16 comments

I had this happen to me shortly after my first book came out. The blogger had copied what I wrote word for word. I wouldn’t have minded if she had given me credit since it was a part of my book but she didn’t. I contacted her about it and she ended up putting my name on the content as the author. So yes, I know it happens.

I have taken content from others as well but I always given them the credit—unless I’m paraphrasing it with my own choice of words.

It’s amazing Bev. It’s hard for me to believe these blogs and websites are making money off our content when we’re not. lol It’s not even imitation; it’s flat out thievery. I’m with you though, a link would be appreciated, but what three of these sites (which I believe are all owned by the same people) did was use some kind of rss program to scrape my site and the sites of others. I mean, really, they’re using my pictures of me and my niece and also my copyright notice? Morons!

Oh I find this so utterly frustrating. First, it’s just wrong and against the law. But, second, I get even more annoyed if they outrank my site.

I did have someone copying my blog posts word for word a few days after each one was published. They must have had an rss feed. After many attempts to reach the person, I filed a DMCA and they took the whole site down. (The whole site copied mine and a few other sites).

Yesterday, I saw someone stole one of my pictures (via pinterest) and it’s in the #1 spot in the snippet. My article is ranking #1, but the snippet is before me. So, now I need to deal with this and of course I don’t have time for this.Rich Witt recently posted…What to do when you inherit a house you can’t afford

You’re right, no one has time for this stuff… yet we have to do it to protect our content and ourselves, especially with the possibility that they might be outranking us and making money off us. So many dishonest and unethical people in this world; sigh…

Thanks for a good article. I have shared this with my business partner. Obviously, no one will allow someone to steal his investment as we write blogs and do this all hard work for making some money. So, one should take every step to avoid any tragedy. It is as important to write some blogs itself. Thanks for a good article. I wish you keep on sharing such point with us.

Hey, Mitch,
Wonderful stuff again!!
I must say, this is a very much informative and helpful post. I have found that someone is stealing my content but I was helpless. But I know about DMCA and can handle this issue this time.
Thaks Mitch, for your post and wish you a very happy new year in advance.

I recommend to put on your site DMCA.com embed badge in the footer of every page. I have it also on my webpage. Stolen content can be taken off the Web by DMCA. Another advantage is the do follow link from a high authority site.Jacob Flap recently posted…50+ Famous Yoda Quotes To Help You Stay On The Light Side

I probably could… but I probably won’t. If people aren’t paying attention to one I don’t know why they’d pay attention to the other. I have a feeling most of those folk don’t know what DMCA is, let alone what it means. lol

Another point of view that generates rapidly after reading topic is to create a more infomatic and innovative blog post that already exits in someone’s other blog. 🙂 I think we should also call that stolen one but in a positive way. What do you say ?

Nope, that’s not a stolen post unless 50% of the words are copied from the original article. Maybe it’s a stolen idea but so many people write on the same things all the time that if someone can improve on it then good for them.

I told you everything you need to do to protect your content in this article. Go to it & you’ll end up being happy later.

Before you leave a reply, please see the comment policy if this is your first visit.
This blog doesn't accept keyword names, and the comment will be deleted if a real first name isn't put on first. Also, don't put subdomain links to other articles in the area where you put your website, as it will be removed and any CommentLuv you might have received from your link also won't show.